August 31, 2012

After nearly 8 years, 5,000 posts and 500,000 page views, this is the last post at Kept-Up Academic Librarian. It has been a good run but the need for this blog is diminished and even though the time it takes to compose it each day is not great, it is time I could use for other activities. Now with so many others sharing higher education news on social networks, along with other sources such as University Business' daily update, Academic Impressions and daily news items in the Chronicle and IHE, it's clear there is less need - and that is supported by the stagnant usage data.

I'll leave the site up for a few more months, but if your library has a link to KUAL, you will probably want to remove it.

I appreciate all the visits to this blog, and I hope it has been useful over the years. I always tried to find stories that were not reported elsewhere or could be of more interest to academic librarians. I hope you'll continue to follow me at Designing Better Libraries or you can follow me on Twitter - blendedlib (I'm also now on Branch - where I hope to continue some writing on current events in higher education).

Thanks again - and I hope you'll continue to stay" Kept-Up" with the world of higher education. If you have a recommendation for another source or individual to follow for keeping up with higher education, please feel free to add it as a comment.

For hundreds of grown men and women here, work can mean sticking fingers into models of the human mouth, or trying to talk while peering at their tongues in mirrors or while hopping up and down stairs. They are foreign graduate students at Ohio University who are spending up to two hours a day learning how to speak so that their American colleagues and students will understand them. Many of them spend more than a year in the program, and they are not allowed to teach until their English instructors say they are ready. Read more at:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/education/college-helps-foreign-students-get-through-to-american-ears.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Standing inside her dorm room at Cornerstone University Wednesday, Abbigail Stefanek watched as her father brainstormed ways to pull off what seemed like a tricky task: fitting five beds into a room normally used for two. “It seems a bit crazy because I didn’t expect to be living with four other people,” said Stefanek. The housing crunch was prompted by trends the university is happy to see unfolding: growing enrollment and more students – even upperclassmen – opting to live on campus. Read more at:http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2012/08/living_in_close_quarters_campu.html

August 30, 2012

Newcastle University is one of the latest entrants into the thriving world of international branch campuses, or IBCs. Universities across the globe have now established well over 200 foreign campuses, up from 82 in 2006. Branch campuses give schools a shot at building a global brand and attracting untapped talent, but they may also threaten the schools’ reputation — as Yale discovered when its plans to expand in Singapore drew fire from alumni and students alike. Read more at:http://world.time.com/2012/08/27/universities-look-east-fueling-branch-campus-boom/#ixzz24rpxGnuV

After months of reacting to one devastating development after another in the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal, university trustees Sunday charted a proactive strategy to rebuild faith in the campus. The approach, outlined on the final day of the board's annual retreat, includes implementing several recommendations offered last month in an internal report on the university's handling of the crisis, as well as launching a media campaign to emphasize Penn State's achievements. Read more at:http://articles.philly.com/2012-08-28/news/33426040_1_centre-county-court-jury-jerry-sandusky-child-graham-b-spanier

Campus Reform, a conservative organization, has been inviting students to submit videos of liberal professors promising $100 if the videos lead to an article for the group. Kieran Healy, a sociologist at Duke University, decided he could make money off the offer, turning himself in as a liberal, with a YouTube video offering evidence of the potentially dangerous books a liberal professor might read. See the post at:
http://crookedtimber.org/2012/08/23/bottom-feeders/

August 29, 2012

It was the first day of the fall term at most of California's 112 community colleges, and statewide budget cuts meant students were returning from summer break to face higher fees, fewer course offerings and crowded classrooms. An information booth on the Culver City campus overflowed with students hoping to add high-demand classes such as English. Read more at:http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-college-classes-20120828,0,6461667.story